It simply never ends. Doping has always been part of sport and it will continue to be. It can definitely help some athletes run, jump or throw faster. Sprinters Tyson Gay and Asafa Powel, who got caught in 2013, have been big fish, but they certainly weren’t the first or last to get caught in an anti-doping net.
While athletics has written many great stories in the past, there are some dark doping chapters in its history. We can probably find the most sinners among sprinters. Since the 1980s, the best runners on the shortest cross-country courses have been confronted with doping suspicions. While most of them remained adamant that they were clean, some of them admitted over time (often under the pressure of evidence) that they had taken banned substances. In the following, you will find an overview of the biggest doping scandals in sprinting history.
The Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson won the 100m at the 1988 Olympics with a fantastic time of 9.79 seconds, beating his biggest rival Carl Lewis. The joy lasted only until his urine sample ended up in a laboratory, where it was found to contain banned steroids. And overnight, a hero became the ultimate villain. Johnson lost his record and his medals.
After a two year ban from racing, he attempted a comeback, but it was inglorious – another doping scandal. Johnson later confessed that he was introduced to doping by coach Charlie Francis. “I said to myself: Well, what’s the point of me being clean when everyone else is cheating. This is not fair,” Johnson told British newspaper The Guardian in 2010.
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